A Captain's Battle
by Mashup
Summary: As Steve Rogers fights a long forgotten battle, he receives unexpected guidance from Tony Stark. A character study of Steve.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Contains spoilers for Iron Man 3 & Captain America 2

* * *

Captain Steven Rogers found himself longing for Washing DC and the large open spaces that accompanied his morning runs. In the rather packed streets of New York, Rogers found himself electing to conduct his runs inside Stark Tower on the Gymnasium Level, which housed all the latest gadgets most of which he was not remotely interested in, save for the treadmill, which he was now working at thirty miles per house.

Also busy at work on the treadmill next to him, was Tony Stark, the owner of the building, who had initially come off as a blatant show-off on the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier (mainly because he didn't like being told what to do by anybody) but was rather more relaxed in his own tower. He had turned the jerk meter down a notch and was being rather more Tony than Steve had expected, including his habit of having a rampant conversation with his AI whilst engaging in his morning exercise.

"Sir, your pulse is holding steady but your heart is still recovering." Said the AI.

"JARVIS, I had that operation over a month ago." Tony replied, trying to ignore his digital butler.

"Yes, but the tissue regeneration was only completed last week. You barely have a functional heart and this is your first week off the pace maker. In medical terms, you are at high risk of cardiac failure if you over exert yourself." JARVIS replied with the kind of patience reminiscent of Dr Banner.

"Relax JARVIS." Tony shook his head. "If I want to keep my heart healthy, I going to have to exercise it."

Steve, who had been silently listening to the exchange between the genius programmer and his creation, had to smile. Even Tony's computer was more concerned with his health than he was. Steve's experience in relation to his health, had been the opposite. Because of his weak stature prior to his change, he had to be weary of all risks to his wellbeing as they would prove much deadlier to him than to his contemporaries.

Rogers and Stark did share one common trait – the transformation from their former selves to their Avenger selves had been extremely painful. Even Rogers's supervisors were not sure if he would survive his transformation. As for Stark, he was very lucky to survive with the limited medical supplies available, thanks to Yinsen. This is wear the similarities to their experiences end. After their transformations, while Rogers was able to experience stability in his health as he had not experienced before, Stark found himself in constant pain and experiencing one near-death experience after another.

"Rogers, you okay?" Tony asked Steve as the Captain had switched off his treadmill and was gripping the side bars with a look of extreme concentration on his face.

Steve did not immediately reply. He had not experienced something like this since his transformation and it felt alien. Stark noted the pearls of sweat on the neck of the soldier. From Rogers's perspective, he felt as though he had been winded. He had not run any further than he normally would have. In fact the distance this morning was significantly shorter. He found himself short of breath and feeling slightly weak in the knees.

"Captain Rogers's core body temperature has risen to one hundred degrees Fahrenheit." JARVIS answered in the Captain's silence.

"Don't tell me you haven't been sick since the Second World War." Tony grinned.

"I'm not sure what happened." Steve wheezed.

He had been injured multiple times since his reawakening from the ice – most recently, falling out of the sky into a river. And he had recovered from that. Injury was something that he was familiar with. Disease, he was not. He could handle external battles. In fact, he himself was an expert in military battles. However, he was not entirely comfortable with internal battles – especially the ones that had the potential to incapacitate him.

"Take a deep breath." Tony encouraged.

No sooner had Steve acted on his advice than he'd gone into a coughing fit. Once again, this was not something that he had experienced since his transformation. He didn't like where this was headed.

"What?" Steve's eyes were filled with panic as he looked at Tony, who was supporting him and trying to hold him steady.

Tony recognised that look as he had only just very recently managed to hold down his own panic and keep his anxiety attacks at bay. He didn't really want to see it manifest in another person.

"JARVIS, what's his diagnosis?" Tony asked his AI.

"Influenza, Sir." JARVIS replied.

"Is the gym really spinning around?" Steve asked, still slightly out of breath.

"You should sit down." Tony instructed.

"Shall I call upon Dr Banner?" JARVIS suggested.

"No." Steve replied quickly.

"What he said." Tony agreed.

Steve glanced at Tony. He and Stark may not have seen eye to eye on a lot of things but it seemed that Tony understood some of what he was going through at this moment and he respected his request to keep this quiet.

* * *

"Welcome to the world of modern medicine." Tony smirked.

Steve found himself being handed two non-descript tablets, one blue and one white in colour.

"They will help to alleviate your symptoms." JARVIS assured him as Tony handed him a glass of water.

"Thank you." Said Steve after he had taken his medication.

"Don't mention it." Tony smiled as he jabbed his finger with a small needle.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked with concern.

"I didn't bring you down here so you could ogle me." Tony laughed, referring to the fact that they were both in his workshop. "I brought you down here because I know that you're trying to avoid the others."

"What are you testing for?" The Captain asked as Tony slid the slide containing the drop of his blood into a machine for processing.

"You know, I thought that having shrapnel in my chest was troublesome enough." Tony shook his head. "It turns out that regrowing your heart can be even more troublesome. I have to test constantly to make sure that it's growing the right way so that it doesn't clog up and give me a heart attack or that it doesn't break off and go to places it shouldn't be in and cause me a stroke or something. JARVIS is helping me to monitor it."

"I thought you said it had already finished growing." Steve asked Tony, uncertain.

"Yes it has. But I still have to keep testing it for…" Tony left the sentence hanging on purpose.

"Regularly for at least another month and then periodically after that for up to six months." JARVIS informed them.

"Thanks." Tony muttered sarcastically.

Though he often ignored his AI, he knew better than to skip on these tests, especially since his surgeon had originally refused to discharge him. The hospital only agreed to let him go after Dr Banner offered to be his medical guarantor and was basically threatening to Hulk out if he deviated even slightly from the official treatment and monitoring plan.

"Jesus, you must think I'm a wus or something." Steve paled at the comparison of his flu to Tony's ongoing heart problems. Not that his illness was a walk in the park either.

"I didn't know they had "wus" in the Forties." Tony smiled.

"Haha." Steve replied. "I might have been sleeping under a rock but I woke up fully connected to this world. I didn't wake up in a vacuum."

"You know what? I'm impressed." Said Tony. "I am genuinely impressed that you've been able to keep up with the modern world, despite the time jump."

"I went to see her." He didn't have to explain who the 'her' was.

Tony understood. "Go on."

"I thought it would make me really sad but I was happy for her. She had gone on and lived a full life despite us not being able to be together." Steve eyes had stopped seeing what was in front of him and were now far away somewhere.

"You should probably go to sleep." Tony reminded the soldier. "That's why I brought you here so that you could sleep without being disturbed. Otherwise I would have just taken you to your room."

As chaotic as it was, the workshop was still the best place to sleep without people walking in on you and, in the case of Steve Rogers, asking why you're asleep in the middle of the day when you normally don't sweat and have never really shown fatigue at this hour.

Steve didn't protest as Tony lead him to one of his cars and folded down the front passenger seat so that he could lie down on it. Tony, for his part, was thinking about Pepper. He was sure that if he were to live through what Steve had experienced and if Pepper had been forced to move on in the event of a Tony Stark being frozen in time, he probably would not have been able to accept this reality as Steve had done. Steve Rogers had a very strong heart indeed – and in more ways than one.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This chapter was originally posted as a separate story but since it follows on directly from the events in this story, I've decided to add it here as a second chapter. The original can be found at "Shooting Star". This chapter also references (vaguely) the events of "Flight of The Archer".

* * *

Clint Barton stared at the falling object with disbelief. How many times does Tony Stark have to fall out of the sky before he learns his lesson?

There were only two instances that Barton had witnessed. The first being the infamous drop back down to earth through the wormhole. The second being the mostly invisible fall when Tony was testing out a new cloaking capable suit and stalking Barton, who was flying a helicopter at the time, to do this.

Clint reasoned that there were probably more falls that he did not know about. Which was why the reaction of Steve Rogers to Tony Stark's current fall took him by surprise.

"Banner get to Stark now! I don't care how angry you are." The Captain commanded over the intercom.

Clint was also quite surprised to see the Hulk complying immediately. Though the Hulk was usually not completely unreasonable, it usually did its own thing and when its own thing just happened to be what the group needed, that was considered to be following orders. Clint had never seen the Hulk follow a specific order like this before.

"Get his suit off!" Steve practically shouted and Clint wished that there was a volume control on his earpiece.

Once again, the Hulk showed incredible control despite his rage. He peeled off the front of Tony's suit, damaging most of the command centre.

Incredibly, JARVIS began shouting instructions to the Hulk on how to disassemble the suit knowing full well that by the end of it, there would not be enough wiring left for the for the AI to function in the it. JARVIS was basically instructing the Hulk to kill him.

Needless to say, Stark wasn't breathing. Captain Rogers did not wait for a medic to examine Tony Stark. Instead, he waited for the best (and only) defibrillator available on scene – Thor.

"Can you focus your lighting? We don't want to fry him to, we just want to restart his heart." Said Steve.

"Are you sure that his heart has stopped?" Thor asked to check.

"Yes, I'm fairly sure." Steve replied.

"Okay. I think I can do it." Thor nodded.

"What the hell happened?" Natasha Romanoff came up behind Clint.

For once the Avengers were not on a mission to battle against supervillains, they were in the area to help clean up after a hurricane.

"I don't know. I think Stark just had a heart attack." Barton replied.

There was a tense pause as everyone turned their attention to Thor. His eyes had changed to the colour of the sky again. Then he stopped and lowered his hammer.

"It's not going to work. There's going to be too much electricity." He said.

"Put it on his heart." Said Bruce Banner. Banner had just completed one of the quickest transitions back from the Hulk that Barton had seen.

"You don't want the charge to build up inside the hammer like a storage device, you want it to go through your hammer like a straight conductor." Bruce instructed.

What followed was one of the strangest (and funniest) uses of the hammer that Clint had ever seen by Thor. He lay on his back next to the partially exposed Iron Man with his hand on his hammer and the hammer resting on Stark's chest. Then his eyes were the colour of the sky again and a small bolt of lightning hit it, going straight through and into Tony who awoke yelling at the top of his lungs.

"What the? Why was I in Victorian London? What century is this?" Stark shouted.

"Glad to have you back." Captain Rogers smiled.

"I didn't just..." Said Tony.

"Yes you did." Steve replied.

"But it was better..." Tony looked uncertain.

"Guess not completely." Steve smiled

"What are you two talking about?" Asked Doctor Banner.

"The blood in his heart keeps clotting too quickly. He's supposed to take blood thinners but it looks like he forgot this time." Steve shook his head.

"But the tests came back normal." Said Tony as he tried to push himself up off the ground (and failed).

"Doesn't mean you should stop taking your meds." Steve countered.

"Why didn't you come to me?" Bruce asked.

"I was handling it." Tony objected.

"Not very well." Steve countered.

"How is it that you know so much about his heart problems?" Asked Natasha.

"He helped me once when I was sick so I thought I'd keep an eye on him. Knowing Stark, he's bound to get himself either seriously injured or seriously ill. Only a matter of time." Steve replied.

"This is not like human nature." Thor observed. "Most of the humans that I've met have an instinct for self-preservation. I do not see it in him."

"Great. You calling me a freak now?" Tony retorted.

"If that's how you want to interpret the 'lack of self-preservation' comment then yes we are." Said Bruce.

"You're angry with me." Tony observed. "Why are you angry with me?"

"Because you think that you can fix everything on your own." Bruce shook his head.

"I'm a mechanic. It's what I do." Said Tony

"Your body is not a machine, Stark." Said Bruce, trying to keep his voice calm.

"It might as well be." Tony shook his head. "I know that I could get a bionic heart and I would have less of these emergencies. But you're forgetting that I would also be less me."

"I don't think anyone could be as arrogant as you so don't worry. You'll never lose what it is that makes you Tony Stark." Clint pointed out.

"I need my heart." Said Tony, just to emphasise his point.

"You also need a doctor who actually knows what their doing." Said Bruce. "Now, I don't care how many databases JARVIS has access to, you are basically self-diagnosing and self-medicating. If you'd like to actually be able to stay in the air without falling out of the sky, you're going to need a proper doctor."


End file.
